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By Jon Snow. 2024
'A fascinating call to arms full of insight' IndependentAfter four decades broadcasting to the nation each night, Jon Snow gives…
vent to his opinions on the state of our nation . . . the good news and the bad newsIt is rare in history that so many nations in the developed world are in crisis at the same time. There has been a disintegration of trust in political leaders and in the media that holds them to account. For all the progress humankind has made, for all the inventions and new technologies, our society is being undermined by inequality. To fix it, we must begin by seeking out the truth about our world.In The State of Us, Jon Snow traces how the life of the nation has changed across his five-decade career, from getting thrown out of university for protesting apartheid to interviewing every prime minister since Margaret Thatcher.In doing so, he shows how the greatest problems at home and abroad so often come down to inequality and an unwillingness to confront it. But that is not our fate. Despite the challenges, Snow has witnessed profound social progress. In this passionate rallying cry, he argues that at its best, journalism reflects not just who we are now, but who we can be.We've had enough of division; the future is for us.By Keith Ellison. 2014
As the first Muslim elected to Congress, Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison explores what it's like to be an American in…
the twenty-first century.As a Black, Latino, and former Catholic who converted to Islam, Keith Ellison, is the first Muslim elected to Congress—from a district with fewer than 1 percent Muslims and 11 percent Blacks. With his unique perspective on uniting a disparate community and speaking to a common goal, Ellison takes a provocative look at America and what needs to change to accommodate different races and beliefs. Filled with anecdotes, statistics, and social commentary, Ellison touches on everything from the Tea Party to Obama, from race to the immigration debate and more. He also draws some very clear distinctions between parties and shows why the deep polarization is unhealthy for America. Deeply patriotic, with My Country &’Tis of Thee, Ellison strives to help define what it means to be an American today.By Ann Gerhart. 2004
Laura Bush is arguably the most popular figure in the Bush White House. Even the President's detractors would not hesitate…
to describe the First Lady as utterly sincere and devoted to family and country, whether she is advocating on behalf of education and libraries or comforting the nation in times of crisis. Ann Gerhart of The Washington Post has covered Mrs. Bush since 2001, and no other reporter has interviewed the First Lady more often. Through this unparalleled access Gerhart has been able to uncover the woman behind the carefully maintained image. Far more than an uncomplicated maternal figure and dedicated wife, Laura Bush emerges as a complex and fascinating woman in her own right, who has composed a life of accomplishment for herself alongside her husband's tremendous ambitions. The Perfect Wife tells the complete story from Mrs. Bush's upbringing to her whirlwind three-month courtship by George W. Bush and her role as a mother, wife, and public figure. An only child raised in a segregated and fiercely traditional West Texas town, she is less conservative than her husband and appealingly down-to-earth despite the extraordinary privileges of her position. Two tragedies have defined her: a car accident when she was seventeen and September 11, when she suddenly had to transform her job and take herself far more seriously. Ann Gerhart examines the First Lady's influences and motivations, reveals the depths to which her husband relies upon her, and assesses her achievements. Compelling and insightful, this is the first comprehensive account of a woman who has won the admiration of the nation and of the compromises and challenges that come with taking on the most examined volunteer job in the world.By C. David Heymann. 2007
From the moment of their births, John and Caroline Kennedy occupied a central position in what is generally regarded as…
the most famous family in the United States, if not the world. Even as young children growing up in the White House, their most subtle gestures and actions made headlines.... Yet until now they have not been the subject of a dual biography. In that sense, this volume represents a first. In American Legacy, #1 New York Times bestselling author C. David Heymann draws upon a voluminous archive of personal interviews to present a telling portrait of John and Caroline Kennedy. A longtime biographer of various members of the Kennedy clan, including Jackie and Robert Kennedy, Heymann covers John's and Caroline's childhood in the White House, the dark aftermath of their father's assassination, their uneasy adolescence, and the many challenges they faced as adults, all under the glaring eye of the media. He reveals John's and Caroline's loving but at times trying relationship with their larger-than-life mother, as well as Jackie's own emotional struggles, romantic relationships, and financial concerns following JFK's death. Other revelations brought to light for the first time in American Legacy include the assassination attempt made on Jackie just before she gave birth to John; JFK Jr.'s romantic escapades prior to marrying Carolyn Bessette and accounts of the predominantly happy marriage they shared despite criticisms from questionable sources; the shocking report of the autopsy performed on John following the tragic plane crash that killed him, Carolyn, and her sister Lauren; Caroline's rise to become one of the wealthiest women in America and her life now as the sole keeper of her family's magnificently complex legacy. Utterly compelling and full of new and fascinating details, American Legacy overturns much of what we thought we knew about two of the most talked-about members of the Kennedy family.By Nelson Mandela. 2012
From the heart and soul of visionary Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, a collection of his most uplifting, time-honored…
quotes that have inspired our world and offer a path for peace.&“The book that you hold in your hands is nothing short of a miracle.&” —Desmond Tutu, from the IntroductionNotes to the Future is the definitive book of quotations from one of the great leaders of our time. This collection—gathered from privileged access to Mandela&’s vast personal archive of private papers, speeches, correspondence, and audio recordings—features more than three hundred quotations spanning more than sixty years and includes his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.These inspirational quotations, organized into four sections—Struggle, Victory, Wisdom, and Future—are both universal and deeply personal. We see Mandela&’s sense of humor, his loneliness and despair, his thoughts on fatherhood, and the reluctant leader who had no choice but to become the man history demanded.&“A good pen can also remind us of the happiest moments in our lives, bring noble ideas into our dens, our blood and our souls. It can turn tragedy into hope and victory&” (from a letter to Zindzi Mandela, written on Robben Island, February 10, 1980).By John Dodson. 2013
A hard-hitting inside account of the Fast and Furious scandal—the government-sponsored program intended to “win the drug war” by providing…
and tracking gun sales across the border to Mexico—from whistle-blower and ATF agent John Dodson.After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, John Dodson pulled bodies out of the wreckage at the Pentagon. In 2007, following the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech, John Dodson walked through the classrooms, heartbroken, to cover up the bodies of the victims.Then came Arizona. The American border.Ten days before Christmas, 2010, ATF agent John Dodson awoke to the news he had dreaded every day as a member of the elite team called the Group VII Strike Force: a U.S. border patrol agent named Brian Terry had been shot dead by bandits armed with guns that had been supplied to them by ATF. Was this an inevitable consequence of the Obama administration’s Project Gunrunner, set in place one year earlier ostensibly to track Mexican drug cartels?Brian Terry’s murder would not only change John Dodson’s life forever; it would reveal a scandal so unthinkably unpatriotic that it forced President Barack Obama to claim executive privilege and caused Attorney General Eric Holder to be held in contempt of Congress.Federal Agent John Dodson, an ex-military man, took an oath to defend the world’s greatest country, and proudly considered himself a walking patriotic example of the American Dream. Brian Terry, ex-military like Dodson, was only forty years old, a family man who served his country by working for the government.Dodson was terrified when the next phone call came, one with the potential to destroy his career, his family, and his life. CBS investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson asked Dodson to go public with what he knew about Fast and Furious. To Agent Dodson, this meant blowing the whistle. But to the family of Agent Terry, it was a chance to save lives and right a wrong. As he took a fight from the border towns of Arizona to a showdown in the halls of Congress, John Dodson clung to the hope that truth would prevail, that he would be redeemed, and that Brian Terry’s death would not be in vain.Like whistle-blowers before him, John would not be welcome back on the job. But he found strength in his conscience, in the support of the American public, and in Senators Darryl Issa and Chuck Grassley. When his first-amendment rights to publicly tell his story were threatened, the ACLU took up his case. For her report revealing John Dodson as the key whistle-blower in Fast and Furious, Sharyl Attkisson received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.Ultimately, John Dodson was cleared by the Inspector General’s office, publicly heralded as a hero, and returned to Arizona.Perhaps a lesson gleaned from John Dodson’s powerful account is well stated by former Speaker of the House of Representatives Sam Rayburn: “If you always tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said.”By Doris Kearns Goodwin. 1967
An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America&’s most beloved historians,…
artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life.Dick and Doris Goodwin were married for forty-two years and married to American history even longer. In his twenties, Dick was one of the brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy&’s New Frontier. In his thirties he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson&’s Great Society and was a speechwriter and close advisor to Robert Kennedy. Doris Kearns was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student when selected as a White House Fellow. She worked directly for Lyndon Johnson and later assisted on his memoir. Over the years, with humor, anger, frustration, and in the end, a growing understanding, Dick and Doris had argued over the achievements and failings of the leaders they served and observed, debating the progress and unfinished promises of the country they both loved. The Goodwins&’ last great adventure involved finally opening the more than three hundred boxes of letters, diaries, documents, and memorabilia that Dick had saved for more than fifty years. They soon realized they had before them an unparalleled personal time capsule of the 1960s, illuminating public and private moments of a decade when individuals were powered by the conviction they could make a difference; a time, like today, marked by struggles for racial and economic justice, a time when lines were drawn and loyalties tested. Their expedition gave Dick&’s last years renewed purpose and determination. It gave Doris the opportunity to connect and reconnect with participants and witnesses of pivotal moments of the 1960s. And it gave them both an opportunity to make fresh assessments of the central figures of the time—John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and especially Lyndon Johnson, who greatly impacted both their lives. The voyage of remembrance brought unexpected discoveries, forgiveness, and the renewal of old dreams, reviving the hope that the youth of today will carry forward this unfinished love story with America.By Andrew Jackson. 2021
In The Fire and the Ashes, long-time union economist and policy analyst Andrew Jackson looks back on a fascinating career…
in the labour movement, the NDP, and left politics, combining keen historical analysis with a political manifesto for today. As one of the few trade union economists in Canada, Jackson brings a unique insider perspective and decades of experience to bear on his critical reflections on the history and changing fortunes of the NDP, the failures of neoliberalism, and the waning and recent renewal of the democratic socialist tradition. What plays out is a battle of ideas fought by Jackson and the wider left—one meant to rekindle both political veterans and a new generation of activists who believe that a true democracy cannot exist with great inequalities of wealth and political power, and that social ownership and public investment must be brought squarely into the mainstream.By Libby Davies. 2019
Libby Davies has worked steadfastly for social justice both inside parliament and out on the streets for more than four…
decades. At nine-teen, Davies became a community organizer in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. She went on to serve in municipal and then federal politics, advancing to the role of Deputy Leader of the New Democratic Party. Davies looks back on her remarkable life and career with candid humour and heart-rending honesty. She addresses the challenges of her work on homelessness, sex workers’ rights, and ending drug prohibition. She illuminates the human strengths and foibles at the core of each issue, her own as well as those of her colleagues and activist allies. Davies’ astute political analysis offers an insider’s perspective that never loses touch with the people she fights alongside. Outside In is both a political and personal memoir of Davies’ forty years of work at the intersection of politics and social movements.By Peggy Nash. 2022
When Peggy Nash first decided to run for elected office, she had no idea where to start, who to contact,…
or what the rules were. For those who are underrepresented in political life, politics can seem like a secret society designed to shut them out. Women Winning Office is a practical handbook for activist women on how to open doors and take their place in the political process. Find out how to build a team, get nominated, inspire volunteers, and canvass voters. Nash draws on her experience in five federal campaigns, as well as the stories of many inspiring Canadian women who have run for office at all levels of government. Some succeeded; some did not. Some faced difficult and painful experiences. Every one of them would do it again. To make real progressive change, we need to change not only who gets elected in Canada, but how our democracy functions. If you want to find out how to take your desire for a better world into elected office, this book is for you.By Michael Riordon. 2004
An Unauthorized Biography of the World explores the practice of engaged oral history: the difficult, sometimes dangerous work of recovering…
fragments of human story that have gone missing from the official versions. Michael Riordon has thirty years’ experience as a writer and broadcaster in the field. Readers will encounter a gallery of brave, passionate people who gather silenced voices and lost life stories. The canvas is broad, the stakes are high: the battles for First Nations lands in Canada; environmental justice in Chicago; genocide in Peru; homeless people organizing in Cleveland; September 11/01, and after, in New York City; gay survivors of electroshock in Britain; the struggle to preserve a people’s identity in Newfoundland; peasant resistance to a huge transnational gold mine in Turkey.By Marilyn Churley. 2015
In the late 1960s, at the age of eighteen and living far from home amidst the thriving counterculture of Ottawa,…
Marilyn Churley got pregnant. Like thousands of other women of the time she kept the event a secret. Faced with few options, she gave the baby up for adoption. Over twenty years later, as the Ontario NDP government’s minister responsible for all birth, death, and adoption records, including those of her own child, Churley found herself in a surprising and powerful position – fully engaged in the long and difficult battle to reform adoption disclosure laws and find her son. Both a personal and political story, Shameless is a powerful memoir about a mother’s struggle with loss, love, secrets, and lies – and an adoption system shrouded in shame.By Ann Hansen. 2002
Ann Hansen stood trial as one of the so-called “Squamish Five.” Sentenced to life in prison, she served seven years.…
Now she tells her story for the first time. Direct Action captures the excitement and indignation of the counterculture of the early ’80s. Missile tests were fuelling a new arms race. Reckless megaprojects threatened the global environment. Alienation, punk rock, and militancy were on the rise. Hansen and her fellow urban guerrillas believed that sabotaging government and corporate property could help turn things around. To prove their point, they bombed the Litton Systems plant in Toronto, where components for Cruise Missiles were being made. Hansen’s book poses unresolved ethical dilemmas. In light of the recent explosion of anti-globalization protests, Direct Action mirrors the resurgence of militant activity around the world.By Charlie Angus. 2013
For twenty-two years politicians and businessmen pushed for the Adams Mine landfill as a solution to Ontario’s garbage disposal crisis.…
This plan to dump millions of tonnes of waste into the fractured pits of the Adams Mine prompted five separate civil resistance campaigns by a rural region of 35,000 in Northern Ontario. Unlikely Radicals traces the compelling history of the First Nations people and farmers, environmentalists and miners, retirees and volunteers, Anglophones and Francophones who stood side by side to defend their community with mass demonstrations, blockades, and non-violent resistance.By Katie Arnold. 2024
A Zen study wrapped in a memoir of destruction and healing written by an elite ultrarunner as she struggles to…
make it to the other side of a life-shattering injury with her sanity, and her marriage, intactAfter flipping her raft days away from help on a trip down the remote Salmon River, Katie Arnold&’s shattered leg tests both her spirit and her marriage for years to come. It also reignites her meditation practice and motivates her to dive into Zen in search of healing. Before the accident, Katie was an elite ultrarunner with a simmering but adequate marriage who avoided being indoors whenever possible. But who is she afterwards?In the midst of hardship, Katie turns for support to the Zen practice she had long dabbled in. Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World is a Zen study wrapped in a memoir that tells the story of a search for stillness by a woman born for wildness. Spanning roughly two years, from shortly before the accident through the long, uncertain healing of both leg and marriage, it is a personal narrative of that tumultuous time nested inside meditations on Zen. Having gone from a reluctant spiritualist to a Zen practitioner over the course of a decade, Katie Arnold offers unique company for those seeking nature&’s exquisite highs as well as for creatives, spiritualists, and sensualists who want to slow down and examine the possibilities of a well-lived life. As the late Japanese master Shunryu Suzuki wrote, &“Sometimes a flashing will come through the dark sky.&” These brief flashings are enlightenment—moments when we suddenly feel as if we&’re part of everything, and everything&’s part of us. This book is about how to experience the flashings when they come, and about what they mean for how we live our lives.By Jean Becker. 2024
Former Chief of Staff to President George H.W. Bush and New York Times bestselling author of The Man I Knew,…
Jean Becker shares touching and pivotal life lessons from a leader that left a mark on people's hearts and souls. As America heads into what promises to be a tumultuous 2024 presidential election year, Character Matters will be a good reminder of the importance of character when defining true leadership. Colleagues, friends, and family will share their often very personal stories of what they learned from watching and listening to President Bush, including former United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Secretary of State James A. Baker; stand-up comedian Dana Carvey; "Queen of Country" star Reba McEntire; American columnist for The New York Times Maureen Dowd; American novelist Brad Meltzer; presidential biographer Jon Meacham; former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom John Major; former Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney; Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; the Oak Ridge Boys and best-selling author Christopher Buckley; and of course his grandchildren. Character Matters will illustrate how George Bush never stopped showing us the way to lead by example.By Tracy Cochran. 2024
In 20 short, gem-like chapters, meditation teacher Tracy Cochran invites us to explore living fully in the present moment as…
a revolutionary practice.Tracy&’s vibrant essays from her storied life give plenty of encouragement to reframe and dive deep into our own experiences.Mindfulness offers us a way to be fully in the present moment—and as we start to embrace this practice, we learn that our lives are made of present moments. That gift of presence is the palpable experience of awareness that appears when we remember to be mindful of those moments. In 20 short chapters, Cochran encourages us to see presence as a living force—and to recognize and explore how that shows up in our lives. She offers riveting and relatable stories from her life—a spiritually transformative wine-making trip in France, a near-death experience while being mugged, managing her feisty child while on a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, among many others—and Buddhist teachings to encourage us to see the power of presence to illuminate and transform our past, present, and future. Cochran's observations and reminiscences are wise and pithy, and she gives us plenty of encouragement to explore and reframe our own experiences.By Yael Bentor and Penpa Dorjee. 2024
This commentary on Guhyasamaja tantra is the seminal guide to deity yoga and tantric visualization for the Geluk school of…
Tibetan Buddhism.Ocean of Attainments was composed by Khedrup Jé Gelek Palsang (1385–1438), one of Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa&’s most prominent disciples. Its subject is the creation stage, a quintessential Buddhist tantric meditation that together with the completion stage comprises the path of unexcelled tantra. The Guhyasamaja Tantra, referred to as the &“king of all tantras,&” is revered in Tibet, especially by the Geluk school, for its hermeneutic methods, which are in turn applied to other tantras. In the creation stage, meditators visualize themselves as buddhas at the center of the celestial mandala, surrounded in all directions by male and female bodhisattvas and enlightened beings. Since the core of the practice is visualization, this meditation—perhaps more than other meditations—presumes the creative power of the mind. Visualizations form the basis not only of the creation stage and deity yoga but of all tantric practices and rituals, since tantric practice takes place not in mundane existence but in the illusion-like purity of the enlightened view. While the previously published Essence of the Ocean of Attainments is a concise exposition on the practice of the Guhyasamaja sadhana, Ocean of Attainments is much more detailed, providing extensive scriptural citations, clear explanation of the body mandala, arguments on points of contention, reference to other tantric systems, and critiques of misinterpretations. Complemented by the extensive and clear introduction, this volume is a vital contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Guhyasamaja and on Buddhist tantra in general.By H. W. Brands. 2021
"A fast-paced, often riveting account of the military and political events leading up to the Declaration of Independence and those…
that followed during the war ... Brands does his readers a service by reminding them that division, as much as unity, is central to the founding of our nation."—The Washington PostFrom best-selling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands comes a gripping, page-turning narrative of the American Revolution that shows it to be more than a fight against the British: it was also a violent battle among neighbors forced to choose sides, Loyalist or Patriot. What causes people to forsake their country and take arms against it? What prompts their neighbors, hardly distinguishable in station or success, to defend that country against the rebels? That is the question H. W. Brands answers in his powerful new history of the American Revolution. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were the unlikeliest of rebels. Washington in the 1770s stood at the apex of Virginia society. Franklin was more successful still, having risen from humble origins to world fame. John Adams might have seemed a more obvious candidate for rebellion, being of cantankerous temperament. Even so, he revered the law. Yet all three men became rebels against the British Empire that fostered their success. Others in the same circle of family and friends chose differently. William Franklin might have been expected to join his father, Benjamin, in rebellion but remained loyal to the British. So did Thomas Hutchinson, a royal governor and friend of the Franklins, and Joseph Galloway, an early challenger to the Crown. They soon heard themselves denounced as traitors--for not having betrayed the country where they grew up. Native Americans and the enslaved were also forced to choose sides as civil war broke out around them. After the Revolution, the Patriots were cast as heroes and founding fathers while the Loyalists were relegated to bit parts best forgotten. Our First Civil War reminds us that before America could win its revolution against Britain, the Patriots had to win a bitter civil war against family, neighbors, and friends.By Steven Wagner. 2024
Eisenhower for Our Time provides an introduction to the Eisenhower presidency, extracting lessons for today's world. Steven Wagner proposes that…
the need to maintain balance defines Eisenhower's presidency. Wagner examines a series of defining moments that were among Eisenhower's greatest challenges, some of which resulted in his greatest accomplishments: the decision to run for president, his political philosophy of the "Middle Way," the creation of a national security policy, the French Indochina War, Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Little Rock Desegregation Crisis, the Race for Space, and the famous Farewell Address. Wagner looks at Eisenhower's executive ability, leadership, decision making, and willingness to compromise, as well as the qualities of duty, integrity, and good character. The moments detailed in Eisenhower for Our Time show Eisenhower as a president intimately engaged in the decisions that defined America in his time and that apply to ours today. The President's actions place him among the most successful presidents and provide many lessons to guide us in our time and in the future.