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Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine
By Jasper Becker. 1996
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Chinese people suffered the worst famine in history. This is the first…
full account of this dark chapter in Chinese history, which reveals state-sponsored terror, cannibalism, torture, and murder.John Quincy Adams (The American Presidents Series)
By Arthur Schlesinger, Robert Remini. 2002
A vivid portrait of a man whose pre- and post-presidential careers overshadowed his presidency. Chosen by the House of Representatives…
after an inconclusive election against Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams often failed to mesh with the ethos of his era, pushing unsuccessfully for a strong, consolidated national government. Historian Robert V. Remini recounts how in the years before his presidency Adams was a shrewd, influential diplomat, and later, as a dynamic secretary of state under President James Monroe, he solidified many basic aspects of American foreign policy, including the Monroe Doctrine. Undoubtedly his greatest triumph was the negotiation of the Transcontinental Treaty, through which Spain acknowledged Florida to be part of the United States. After his term in office, he earned the nickname "Old Man Eloquent" for his passionate antislavery speeches.The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Years in the North Korean Gulag
By Pierre Rigoulot, Kang Chol-Hwan, Yair Reiner. 2001
When President George W. Bush sought to understand the grim realities of human rights abuses in North Korea, he and…
his closest advisers turned to Kang Chol-hwan's harrowing memoir of growing up in a North Korean concentration camp. When he was nine years old, the author--along with members of his family--was sent to the notorious labor camp Yodok, where for ten years he observed frequent public executions and endured forced labor and near-starvation rations. He eventually escaped to South Korea and now, working as a journalist, gives testimony to the atrocities endured by an estimated two hundred thousand North Korean citizens who are still detained in the gulags. Part horror story, part memoir, part political tract, this story of one man's extraordinary personal suffering offers eyewitness proof of the shocking and ongoing abuses perpetrated by the North Korean regime. In a new preface, the author reflects on human rights violations under Kim Jong-il and the ongoing nuclear crisis in North Korea, as well as his historic meeting with George W. Bush in the Oval Office in June 2005.The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Years in the North Korean Gulag
By Pierre Rigoulot, Kang Chol, Yair Reiner. 2001
When President George W. Bush sought to understand the grim realities of human rights abuses in North Korea, he and…
his closest advisers turned to Kang Chol-hwan's harrowing memoir of growing up in a North Korean concentration camp. When he was nine years old, the author--along with members of his family--was sent to the notorious labor camp Yodok, where for ten years he observed frequent public executions and endured forced labor and near-starvation rations. He eventually escaped to South Korea and now, working as a journalist, gives testimony to the atrocities endured by an estimated two hundred thousand North Korean citizens who are still detained in the gulags. Part horror story, part memoir, part political tract, this story of one man's extraordinary personal suffering offers eyewitness proof of the shocking and ongoing abuses perpetrated by the North Korean regime. In a new preface, the author reflects on human rights violations under Kim Jong-il and the ongoing nuclear crisis in North Korea, as well as his historic meeting with George W. Bush in the Oval Office in June 2005.The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Years in the North Korean Gulag
By Pierre Rigoulot, Kang Chol, Yair Reiner. 2001
When President George W. Bush sought to understand the grim realities of human rights abuses in North Korea, he and…
his closest advisers turned to Kang Chol-hwan's harrowing memoir of growing up in a North Korean concentration camp. When he was nine years old, the author--along with members of his family--was sent to the notorious labor camp Yodok, where for ten years he observed frequent public executions and endured forced labor and near-starvation rations. He eventually escaped to South Korea and now, working as a journalist, gives testimony to the atrocities endured by an estimated two hundred thousand North Korean citizens who are still detained in the gulags. Part horror story, part memoir, part political tract, this story of one man's extraordinary personal suffering offers eyewitness proof of the shocking and ongoing abuses perpetrated by the North Korean regime. In a new preface, the author reflects on human rights violations under Kim Jong-il and the ongoing nuclear crisis in North Korea, as well as his historic meeting with George W. Bush in the Oval Office in June 2005.Mao: The Unknown Story
By Jung Chang, Jon Halliday. 2006
The most authoritative life of the Chinese leader every written,Mao: The Unknown Storyis based on a decade of research, and…
on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before -- and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power; he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China; and he schemed, poisoned, and blackmailed to get his way. After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history. In all, well over 70 million Chinese perished under Mao's rule -- in peacetime.Mao: The Unknown Story
By Jung Chang, Jon Halliday. 2006
The most authoritative life of the Chinese leader every written,Mao: The Unknown Storyis based on a decade of research, and…
on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before -- and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power; he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China; and he schemed, poisoned, and blackmailed to get his way. After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history. In all, well over 70 million Chinese perished under Mao's rule -- in peacetime.Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice: The Civil Rights Tapes
By Jonathan Rosenberg, Zachary Karabell. 2003
The Man Who Would Be President: Dan Quayle
By Bob Woodward, David S. Broder. 1992
Bush's Brain How Carl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential
By James Moore, Wayne Slater. 2003
The most powerful man in America may not be George W. Bush. It is probably Karl Rove, the President s…
brilliant advisor. Who is this man and how did he acquire so much power? Having watched in awe for over fifteen years as they reported on the rise of Karl Rove, Moore and Slater expose the brutal and sometimes morally questionable, but invariably effective ways in which Karl Rove-and America s political system-actually operate.The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President
By Noah Feldman. 2017
A sweeping reexamination of the Founding Father who transformed the United States in each of his political “lives”—as a revolutionary…
thinker, as a partisan political strategist, and as a president“In order to understand America and its Constitution, it is necessary to understand James Madison.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci Over the course of his life, James Madison changed the United States three times: First, he designed the Constitution, led the struggle for its adoption and ratification, then drafted the Bill of Rights. As an older, cannier politician he co-founded the original Republican party, setting the course of American political partisanship. Finally, having pioneered a foreign policy based on economic sanctions, he took the United States into a high-risk conflict, becoming the first wartime president and, despite the odds, winning. In The Three Lives of James Madison, Noah Feldman offers an intriguing portrait of this elusive genius and the constitutional republic he created—and how both evolved to meet unforeseen challenges. Madison hoped to eradicate partisanship yet found himself giving voice to, and institutionalizing, the political divide. Madison’s lifelong loyalty to Thomas Jefferson led to an irrevocable break with George Washington, hero of the American Revolution. Madison closely collaborated with Alexander Hamilton on the Federalist papers—yet their different visions for the United States left them enemies. Alliances defined Madison, too. The vivacious Dolley Madison used her social and political talents to win her husband new supporters in Washington—and define the diplomatic customs of the capital’s society. Madison’s relationship with James Monroe, a mixture of friendship and rivalry, shaped his presidency and the outcome of the War of 1812. We may be more familiar with other Founding Fathers, but the United States today is in many ways Madisonian in nature. Madison predicted that foreign threats would justify the curtailment of civil liberties. He feared economic inequality and the power of financial markets over politics, believing that government by the people demanded resistance to wealth. Madison was the first Founding Father to recognize the importance of public opinion, and the first to understand that the media could function as a safeguard to liberty. The Three Lives of James Madison is an illuminating biography of the man whose creativity and tenacity gave us America’s distinctive form of government. His collaborations, struggles, and contradictions define the United States to this day.This is the first thorough historical account of Chief Seattle and his times--the story of a half-century of tremendous flux,…
turmoil, and violence, during which a native American war leader became an advocate for peace and strove to create a successful hybrid racial community.When the British, Spanish, and then Americans arrived in the Pacific Northwest, it may have appeared to them as an untamed wilderness. In fact, it was a fully settled and populated land. Chief Seattle was a powerful representative from this very ancient world. Historian David Buerge has been researching and writing this book about the world of Chief Seattle for the past 20 years. Buerge has threaded together disparate accounts of the time from the 1780s to the 1860s--including native oral histories, Hudson Bay Company records, pioneer diaries, French Catholic church records, and historic newspaper reporting. Chief Seattle had gained power and prominence on Puget Sound as a war leader, but the arrival of American settlers caused him to reconsider his actions. He came to embrace white settlement and, following traditional native practice, encouraged intermarriage between native people and the settlers, offering his own daughter and granddaughters as brides, in the hopes that both peoples would prosper. Included in this account are the treaty signings that would remove the natives from their historic lands, the roles of such figures as Governor Isaac Stevens, Chiefs Leschi and Patkanim, the Battle at Seattle that threatened the existence of the settlement, and the controversial Chief Seattle speech that haunts to this day the city that bears his name.The Battlefield of Ontario Politics: An Autobiography
By Greg Sorbara. 2014
2015 Speaker's Book Award — Shortlisted Greg Sorbara presents a front-row seat to some of the most significant changes in…
Ontario politics. Greg Sorbara has enjoyed one of the most successful careers of any Ontario politician, and in two different Liberal administrations. He was appointed minister of finance by Premier Dalton McGuinty in 2003, and served as campaign chair for the Liberals’ three consecutive election victories — the first time that had happened in more than a century. First elected in 1985, Sorbara was also in the cabinet of Premier David Peterson — the first Liberal leader elected in Ontario in forty-two years. Through his quarter-century of public life in the province, Sorbara had an enviable record of introducing new policies to help Ontarians, while having the guts to raise taxes to pay for those programs. A reinvigorated health-care system, the Ontario Child Benefit, and a subway to York University all have Sorbara’s fingerprints on them. In Greg Sorbara: The Battlefield of Ontario Politics, the author brings you into the back rooms of the Ontario Liberal Party as some of the most significant changes in Ontario’s political history are made. He also gives readers an insider’s view of his party’s election strategies and dispels the myths surrounding the controversial gas plants cancellations.Ellsworth Bunker
By Howard B. Schaffer. 2014
In this first biography of Ellsworth Bunker (1894-1984), Howard Schaffer traces the life of one of postwar America's foremost diplomats…
from his formative years as a successful businessman and lobbyist through a long career in international affairs.Named ambassador to Argentina by Harry Truman in 1951, Bunker went on to serve six more presidents as ambassador to Italy, India, Nepal, and Vietnam and on special negotiating missions. A widely recognized "hawk," Bunker helped shape U.S. policy in Vietnam during his six-year Saigon posting. Using letters Bunker wrote to his wife as well as recently declassified messages he exchanged with Henry Kissinger, Schaffer examines how Bunker promoted the war effort and how he regarded his mission. After leaving Saigon on his seventy-ninth birthday, Bunker next became a key figure in the treaty negotiations, spanning three presidencies, that radically changed the operation and defense of the Panama Canal.Highlighting Bunker's views on the craft of diplomacy, Schaffer paints a complex picture of a man who devoted three decades to international affairs and sheds new light on post-World War II American diplomacy.This book is part of the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Series, co-sponsored by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training in Arlington, Virginia, and Diplomatic & Consular Officers, Retired, Inc., of Washington, D.C.Who Was Johnny Appleseed? (Who was?)
By Joan Holub, Anna Divito. 2005
The perfect biography to "bite into" at the start of a new school year! Children are sure to be fascinated…
by the eccentric and legendary Johnny Appleseed, a man who is best known for bringing apple trees to the midwest. Over John Chapman's lifetime, he saw the country grow and start to spread westward. Traveling alone-- in bare feet and sporting a pot on his head!--Johnny left his own special mark planting orchards that helped nourish new communities. His journeys and adventures are illustrated in a hundred black-and-white illustrations.Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses
By Bruce Feiler. 2001
"The process of gathering these images reminded me of the Bible's effortless ability to reinvent itself for each generation and…
each new way of searching." -Bruce Feiler Its stories may be the best known in the world, but its locations have long been a mystery. Where did Noah's ark land? Where did Moses receive the Ten Commandments? Where are the lost cities of Sodom and Gomorrah? Now, in Walking the Bible: A Photographic Journey, New York Times bestselling author Bruce Feiler offers an unprecedented heart-stirring adventure through the landscape of some of history's most storied events. Featuring Bruce Feiler's own photography as well as his selections from professional collections, Walking the Bible: A Photographic Journey brings together breathtaking vistas, intimate portraits, and fascinating panoramas, providing firsthand access to the inscrutable land where three of the world's great religions were born-and finally puts a face on the stories that have long inspired the human spirit. Over several years, Feiler traveled nearly ten thousand miles through the deserts of the Middle East, which led first to his runaway national bestseller Walking the Bible. This new illustrated book follows his route, offering a thrilling photographic voyage through the actual places of some of the Bible's most memorable events-from the heights of Mount Ararat, where Noah's ark landed, to the desert outpost in Turkey, where Abraham first heard the words of God, to the summit where Moses overlooked the Promised Land. Walking the Bible: A Photographic Journey chronicles a landscape that nurtured the relationship between humans and the divine, breathing new meaning into stories that have been a timeless source of inspiration.Barack Obama's America: How New Conceptions of Race, Family, and Religion Ended the Reagan Era
By John Kenneth White. 2009
"White'sBarack Obama's Americaeloquently captures both the important nuances of the current political scene and its long-term consequences. " ---Richard Wirthlin,…
former pollster for Ronald Reagan "This delightfully written and accessible book is the best available account of the changes in culture, society, and politics that have given usBarack Obama's America. " ---Stan Greenberg, pollster for Bill Clinton and Chairman and CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research "From one of the nation's foremost experts on how values shape our politics, a clear and compelling account of the dramatic shifts in social attitudes that are transforming American political culture. White's masterful blend of narrative and data illuminates the arc of electoral history from Reagan to Obama, making a powerful case for why we are entering a new progressive political era. " ---Matthew R. Kerbel, Professor of Political Science, Villanova University, and author ofNetroots "John Kenneth White is bold. He asks the big questions . . . Who are we? What do we claim to believe? How do we actually live? What are our politics? John Kenneth White writes compellingly about religion and the role it played in making Barack Obama president. White's keen insight into America's many faiths clarifies why Barack Obama succeeded against all odds. It is a fascinating description of religion and politics in twenty-first-century America---a must-read. " ---Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland and author ofFailing America's Faithful "InBarack Obama's America,John Kenneth White has written the political equivalent of Baedeker or Michelin, the definitive guide to and through the new, uncharted political landscape of our world. White captures and explains what America means---and what it means to be an American---in the twenty-first century. " ---Mark Shields, nationally syndicated columnist and political commentator for PBS NewsHour "John White has always caught important trends in American politics that others missed. With his shrewd analysis of why Barack Obama won, he's done it again. " ---E. J. Dionne, Jr. , Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, and University Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University The election of Barack Obama to the presidency marks a conclusive end to the Reagan era, writes John Kenneth White inBarack Obama's America. Reagan symbolized a 1950s and 1960s America, largely white and suburban, with married couples and kids at home, who attended church more often than not. Obama's election marks a new era, the author writes. Whites will be a minority by 2042. Marriage is at an all-time low. Cohabitation has increased from a half-million couples in 1960 to more than 5 million in 2000 to even more this year. Gay marriages and civil unions are redefining what it means to be a family. And organized religions are suffering, even as Americans continue to think of themselves as a religious people. Obama's inauguration was a defining moment in the political destiny of this country, based largely on demographic shifts, as described inBarack Obama's America. John Kenneth White is Professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D. C. Cover image: "Out of many, we are one: Dare to Hope: Faces from 2008 Obama Rallies" by Anne C. Savage, view and buy full image at http://revolutionaryviews. com/obama_poster. html.The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas
By Carl Becker. 1970
Carl Becker's important study is an analysis of the concepts expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Here is a lucid…
explanation of what the Declaration really is, what views it sets forth, where those views arose, and how they have been accepted or modified by succeeding generations. A book that every American should read.Herbert Hoover: A Life
By Glen Jeansonne. 2016
Prizewinning historian Glen Jeansonne delves into the life of our most misunderstood president, offering up a surprising new portrait of…
Herbert Hoover—dismissing previous assumptions and revealing a political Progressive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt, and the most resourceful American since Benjamin Franklin. Orphaned at an early age and raised with strict Quaker values, Hoover earned his way through Stanford University. His hardworking ethic drove him to a successful career as an engineer and multinational businessman. After the Great War, he led a humanitarian effort that fed millions of Europeans left destitute, arguably saving more lives than any man in history. As commerce secretary under President Coolidge, Hoover helped modernize and galvanize American industry, and orchestrated the rehabilitation of the Mississippi Valley after the Great Flood of 1927. As president, Herbert Hoover became the first chief executive to harness federal power to combat a crippling global recession. Though Hoover is often remembered as a “do-nothing” president, Jeansonne convincingly portrays a steadfast leader who challenged congress on an array of legislation that laid the groundwork for the New Deal. In addition, Hoover reformed America’s prisons, improved worker safety, and fought for better health and welfare for children. Unfairly attacked by Franklin D. Roosevelt and blamed for the Depression, Hoover was swept out of office in a landslide. Yet as FDR’s government grew into a bureaucratic behemoth, Hoover became the moral voice of the GOP and a champion of Republican principles—a legacy re-ignited by Ronald Reagan and which still endures today. A compelling and rich examination of his character, accomplishments and failings, this is the magnificent biography of Herbert Hoover we have long waited for.Speaking Out: Inside the White House
By Robert Pack. 1988
To be press secretary for the American President is to be uniquely in the know about all that happens in…
the most important office on earth the White House For six years-- longer than any of his predecessors save for Jim Haggerty Eisenhower s secretary-- Larry Speakes occupied this hot seat for President Ronald Reagan Now in his aptly titled account Speakes recounts the inside story of the Reagan presidency with candor and an uninhibited independence that make Speaking Out not only captivating and sometimes shocking but also essential reading for Americans who want to learn about the untold story of the Reagan administration Speakes already a veteran press officer for Presidents Nixon and Ford and Senators Dole and Eastland took over in 1981 the day chief spokesman Jim Brady was shot in the Hinckley assassination attempt on President Reagan Now he takes us behind the scenes to tell what really happened -- in the Reagan-Gorbachev summits the hostage crisis the Marcos ouster the Lebanon Embassy bombing Reagan s cancer the KAL-007 shootdown the Achille Lauro incident the Daniloff affair the Libyan bombing the Challenger disaster the Iran-Contra affair Larry Speakes is a down-home Mississippian and has the Southerner s special gift for anecdote and an unerring shrewdness about people coupled with earthy humor